Saving a Wild River System

Saving a Wild River System. Ozark National Scenic Riverways. , Americans love their rivers and, with the passage of the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act (Public Law 90-152) in 1968, many more beautiful free flowing streams came under the protection of the National Park Service. Today we benefit from the foresight of a entire generation in the preservation of the Current. the Jacks Fork, the Eleven Point, the Buffalo, the St Croix and many other rivers across America. And it's all a result of an idea that was born here., During the 1950s and 1960s, rivers across America were being dammed for hydroelectric power and for flood control. Had that fate befallen the Current River, the spot where you stand would now be under dozens of feet of water and the springs submerged at the bottom of a reservoir., Thanks to citizen action by concerned people both in the Ozarks and outside of it, a bill was introduced into Congress to prevent damming by establishing the nation's first river based national park the Ozark National Scenic Riverways in 1964. The bill stated that one of the purposes of the new national park was to be the "preservation of portions of the Current River and the Jacks Fork Rivers as free-flowing streams."